On Being Unreasonable.

I recently watched “The Dropout,” a dramatization of the Theranos story. Theranos was the brainchild of entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes. Her dream: develop a machine that would conduct 200 medical tests using a single drop of blood. However, the goal proved unreachable, and the company collapsed in 2018 amidst a storm of finger-pointing and recrimination. Among the lessons to be learned from this story: the difficulty of knowing when to be reasonable and when to be unreasonable.
Personally, this is something with which I struggle. As a qualitative researcher, I’m often faced with the question of how tightly to recruit for a study. The perfectionist in me wants respondents who are EXACTLY what is needed to meet the research objectives. However, the pragmatist in me will point out that perfect participants are likely to be as rare as whooping cranes – making the recruit nearly impossible, and that participants who are ‘close enough’ will almost certainly provide the insights we need.
We all understand the value of being reasonable; often it’s the only way to get something done. However, I also subscribe to the sentiment expressed by George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” There’s no getting around it. If you want to do something that’s never been done before, being reasonable is not going to get you there. Extraordinary goals are the key to extraordinary achievements.
However, remember that being unreasonable is a strategic decision. Know why you’re doing it and what objective it serves. If this decision is overly driven by emotion, and you’re unable to adjust when faced with immoveable obstacles, a situation can easily turn into your own personal Stalingrad. Just ask the Theranos alumni – they know all about the catastrophe that can result from inflexible, unreasonable goals.
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Finding the right balance between reasonableness and unreasonableness might be THE primary determinant for success in business and life. And finding that balance is no small task. It takes, experience, intuition, and a willingness to adjust. You might start out setting outrageously ambitious goals, and might even stick with those goals through multiple setbacks. Eventually however, you may need to acknowledge that your endeavor is doomed to certain failure if you don’t recalibrate.
Some tips for when you’re setting unreasonable goals:
  • Make sure you have a sounding board—people whom you trust, and who understand and support your decision to be unreasonable, but who can advise you when you’ve reached a point at which this is no longer serving your interests. They’ll give you the luxury of being obsessive in pursuing your dream, because they’ll tell you if you’re pursuing a white whale.
  • Being that unreasonableness is a strategic tool, you must have a clearly defined overall strategy for your endeavor. That strategy that will guide you as to when to be reasonable and unreasonable. Clearly define and prioritize your goals – what you need to accomplish. Then decide for which goals you can be reasonable, and where you must be unreasonable.
  • Communication is key. Make sure people understand the rationale and the ultimate goal, as well as the payoff.
  • It’s helpful to view unreasonableness as a finite resource – you can only go to that well so many times before you burn yourself and your colleagues out, lose credibility, or fail spectacularly.
So, to mash together a couple of adages, success lies in finding a way to reach for the stars without letting the perfect be the mortal enemy of the good.

 

The Best Way to Learn Something.

If you know me, you know that I teach martial arts – and you probably know this because I talk about it all the time. I’ve gained a lot from teaching, and one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that, if you want to learn something well, teach it to somebody else. Not only has being a teacher made me a more adept martial arts practitioner, but encouraging students to teach a newly acquired skill or principle to somebody else – another student, a friend or a family member – as soon as possible has become one of my primary instructional techniques.
This concept can be applied to nearly all areas of endeavor, including qualitative research. A great way to help research participants crystalize and refine their own thinking is to ask them to explain their point of view to another participant. And, if you want to be a better researcher, find opportunities to educate others in the profession. That’s one of the reasons I write this blog: my own professional development. Hopefully, if you’ve been reading it regularly over the past three years, you’ve learned a thing or two, and that’s certainly been one of my goals. But I can assure you that nobody has learned more from this newsletter than I have. Similarly, I speak regularly at market research industry conferences and events. This forces me to acquire new knowledge or deepen my understanding of what I already know.
The reason this principle – learning by teaching – works so well is that most skills are self-taught, particularly advanced ones. Like many advanced skills, qualitative research is as much art as it is science. You need a solid grounding in fundamentals, basic facts and principles. However, when it comes to actually doing the thing, it just takes a lot of hard work, failure, and repetition before you become proficient. And this whole process will be improved and sped up if you make a point of finding opportunities to teach what you’re learning.
So, think about your own life. There must be things – personal or professional – at which you want to improve or that you want to know more about. Put this principle to work for yourself – find a way to teach those things to others. If nothing else, this is an opportunity to exploit the people who love you. Turn them into your students, whether they like it or not. My long-suffering wife would probably tell you that she has been on the receiving end of this sort of thing far too many times,  but somehow, she still tolerates me.

Good Conversation Demands Understanding.

One reason there’s so much social and political dysfunction in our world these days is that we don’t take the time – or make the effort – to understand each other.  Case in point, I once witnessed this exchange between two focus group participants. The category: personal wealth management.
Participant 1:  “I love index funds. They make things so easy. I don’t have to pay attention to them, and they perform well.”
Participant 2:  “That’s irresponsible. We should personally take charge of our own money.”
Participant 1:  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re retired and don’t have kids. I’m a single parent working full-time with three kids. My children need as much attention as I can give them—they’re my first priority.”
Participant 2: “Fine. But, thirty years from now, when you can’t afford to retire, you’ll realize the mistake you’ve made.”
I’ll spare you the rest, but things got pretty heated with neither party able to understand – to empathize – with the others point of view.
What do we make of this dialogue? More to the point, can we analyze this exchange to identify the source of disagreement and understand the inability to see another point of view?  Fortunately, there’s a set of tools that will enable that analysis: mindset models.
If you’re trying to figure out why people can’t understand each other, there’s no more valuable tool than mindsets. I’ve compiled dozens of mindsets that I’ve come across throughout my years as a researcher so I could quickly identify the ones driving this breakdown in empathy.
Participant 1 was looking through two mindset lenses: nurturance and efficiency. His highest value was that of caring for his children; secondarily, this was an overtaxed guy trying to get the most out of his time.
Participant 2 came at this conversation from different mindsets. She was focused on self-reliance – we must take responsibility for our obligations – and seemed driven by the idea that there is moral value in hard work – that outsourcing tasks is immoral.
So, here’s a crucial principle: when you encounter attitudes and behaviors that don’t make sense to you, realize that you haven’t identified the controlling mindset. It’s easy to say, “that person’s crazy,” “he’s evil,” or, “that guy’s an idiot.” But, In doing so, you’re missing an opportunity to see things from another point of view.
Mindsets give insight into the feelings of others. In a world where empathy seems to be in short supply, having a set of tools that can help you understand others is of tremendous value.

It’s My Way Or the Highway.

Last year I was interviewing healthcare professionals about how they use a specific medical device. Each doctor I spoke to said firmly that there was one proper way to use this device, although each one’s approach was somewhat different from that of the others. The nurses had a different point of view. While each had his or her own approach, they all acknowledged that there are a variety of ways to use this device, and the approach for a specific situation might vary based on several factors, including personal preference. When I told the nurses about the doctors’ POV that there’s only one right way, they all laughed and said something like, ‘yeah, that’s doctors.’
It’s common for people to develop rigid attitudes about things. So common that there’s a name for it: ‘orthodoxy.’ ‘Dogma’ is also a good description.
I’ve written  about how difficult it’s become to have conversations about sensitive topics – introducing the idea of ‘hyper-morality’ to explain why this is happening. But there’s another force at play: an increase in orthodox mindsets. Orthodoxy – the idea that there is only one correct way to do or think about something – has a way of shutting down conversation. I see this across the social and political spectrum.
Orthodoxy can be seductive, and none of us are immune to its charms. Establishing dogma can be an effective way of gaining the upper hand in a conversation or relationship. Orthodoxy can engender group cohesion – if everybody’s willing to buy in – and can also lead to efficiency and predictability. That’s the reason so many organizations, particularly large ones, can be so rigid. Having one way to do or think about something certainly simplifies things.
But there’s a dark side to orthodoxy. For one thing, it can stifle creativity and personal expression. And, in social settings—not to mention focus groups – it can be pretty toxic. When people put forth a point of view as being the only correct one, others can react badly if they are not willing to subordinate their opinions to the orthodoxy being presented. They might shut down or they might become belligerent – neither of which is a good thing.
It’s important to remember that orthodoxy is a mindset. As with all mindsets, we are free to adopt or reject it as we wish. In an age when I hope we’re all looking for ways to get along better, being on the lookout for orthodoxy in our own thinking can pave the way for friendlier, more productive conversations.

Stoicism’s Big Moment.

A few years ago, I was conducting research on addiction recovery. In a focus group among participants who were successfully managing their condition we got to discussing The Serenity Prayer, written in the 1930’s by Reinhold Niebuhr, and often quoted in addiction treatment settings:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept  the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.”
One participant remarked that this prayer had meant a lot to him during the early, most difficult days of his recovery, and had led him to become an adherent of Stoicism. Another participant piped up: “hey—I’m a Stoic too, and that prayer sums it up perfectly.” One more participant chimed in that she also practiced Stoicism. That was three out of eight. One of the three gave a quick description of Stoicism, causing another participant to remark, “that’s me—I just didn’t know it had a name.” Make that four out of eight. Wow.
Over the remaining four groups, I explored this idea, and discovered another nine people who called themselves Stoics, and two more who realized they had been Stoics without knowing it.Since then, I’ve encountered many people who consider themselves Stoics. Not just those dealing with addiction, but all kinds: healthcare professionals, military and law enforcement personnel and athletes just to name a few.
Until those addiction focus groups, I’d had no awareness of Stoicism as a modern phenomenon—I associated it with ancient Greece. And a phenomenon it is: Stoicism is having a cultural moment. Don’t believe me? Check out the number of recent books about Stoicism on Amazon. Sales of Stoicism classics, such as the Meditations of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, have experienced enormous growth in recent years. And, look at the influential people these days describing themselves as stoics: Tom Brady, Bill Clinton, Jack Dorsey, Keanu Reeves and J. K. Rowling to name a few.
So, why is this happening? Is there something about Stoicism that makes it especially appropriate for these troubled times? I’m thinking, yes. But first, let me provide those among you who were as ignorant of Stoicism as I was with some info on what it is. Bear with me—I’ll keep it brief.
Originating in 3rd Century BC Greece, Stoicism was intended to be a practical philosophy, designed to help regular people live in the real world. At the core of Stoicism are the ideas that happiness is attained through virtue, that pleasures and worldly goods are to be regarded with indifference, and that living in harmony with the world comes of overcoming destructive emotions. Contrary to popular misconceptions, Stoics are not expected to be emotionless but rather not to be ruled by their passions—emotional resilience if you like. Stoicism emphasizes four key virtues:
Prudence—the ability to act cautiously and to do the right thing at the right time.
Justice—the idea of fairness, of treating others with respect and proportionality.
Fortitude—strength, persistence, and the ability to face fear and the unknown.
Self-control—the ability to moderate one’s own behavior and act sensibly.
Above all, Stoicism stresses focusing on what you can control, and not dwelling on things you can’t – remember The Serenity Prayer.
So, what about Stoicism has led it to being all the rage? My own recent experiences as a researcher suggest that people feel especially uncertain, unsafe, and helpless these days. That being the case, a pragmatic approach to life that stresses focusing on what you can control, deemphasizing what you can’t and not letting your emotions get the better of you has to be appealing. As Ryan Holiday, who has written numerous books about Stoicism observes, “born in the tumultuous ancient world, Stoicism took aim at the unpredictable nature of everyday life and offered a set of practical tools meant for daily use.” Considering how tumultuous our world has been over the last few years, it would almost be surprising if Stoicism weren’t experiencing a resurgence.
Importantly, Stoicism isn’t just a recipe for coping. It’s also a way to perceive things—a mindset that helps adherents make sense of a world that seems to be falling apart. This is why marketers and researchers need to be aware of it. To understand how people perceive brands and marketing communications, it is essential to understand the lenses through which they are seeing those things. Becoming conversant in the basics of Stoicism can provide insight into how people react to marketing strategies and messaging.
Stoicism is a mindset tailor-made for difficult times. For every self-described Stoic out there, I suspect there are several more who have unknowingly embraced some aspects of Stoic philosophy. Marketers and researchers need to become informed about this mindset in order to understand this cultural moment.
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